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One night, American author in Rome Sam Dalmas (Tony Musante) witnesses a
murder attempt in an art gallery from the outside, and as he rushes in
to help, he is caught between automatic sliding doors. When the police
finally arrives on the scene, the murderer has long made an escape, but the intended victim Monica Ranieri's
(Eva Renzi) life can be saved, and inspector Morosini (Enrico Maria Salerno)
decides to confiscate Dalmas' passport to keep him in the country as an
important witness - or even suspect. Thing is, the unknown murderer
thinks Sam knows more than he does and thus tries to kill him on more than one
occasion, which causes Sam to pick up investigations on his own, investigations
that lead him to such colourful characters as a stuttering pimp (Gildo Di
Marco), a police informer (Pino Patti) and a half-crazed painter (Mario Adorf),
all of whom provide Sam with valuable clues. But things take a turn for the
worse when via telephone, the killer doesn't only threaten Sam but also his
girlfriend's (Suzy Kendall) life. However, through a random sound recorded on
that phonecall, they find the killer's whereabouts and can only just stop him
(Umberto Raho) from killing Monica Ranieri for real. But once the killer's out
of the picture, the worst is yet to come ...

This movie is both the first movie by former scriptwriter Dario
Argento as well as an early seminal example of the Italian
giallo-genre (= Italian horror-serialkiller-whodunits, which were
extremely popular in the late 60's, early-to-mid 70's until eventually
spawning the more simplistic American slasher genre). Surprisingly
for a man who earned his living by writing screenplays up to then, Dario
Argento's approach proved to be very visual rather than story-driven (though
by giallo standards The Bird with the Crystal Plumage is actually rather
compact) - and his mastery of blending style (both in terms of images and
music), suspense and explicit violence would in later years become Argento's
trademark, with this movie, despite looking quite excellent, being a mere
precursor for things to come.

In all, not Argento's best or most daring film (though far from his worst),
this is just an extremely enjoyable horror thriller not to be missed by fans of
retro genre cinema.